Privacy & Security Policy

Last modified: May 1, 2018

Instant World Booking is the owner and operator of this site (InstantWorldBooking.com). Instant World Booking understands that privacy and security are important and we are strongly committed to protecting the privacy and security of our customers and website visitors. We have been processing online reservations since 2004 and have always placed the security of our online transactions and our customers' personal information and billing details as our top priority.

If you see an undefined term in this Privacy & Security Policy (such as "Content" or "Service"), it has the same definition as in our Terms & Conditions.

This Privacy & Security Policy describes the details of the information that we collect about you, how we process it, to whom we disclose it, and your rights under data protection law in relation to our processing of your data. This Policy covers personal data that is collected through all of our websites (e.g., InstantWorldBooking.com), any Service provided by Instant World Booking, and through booking engines that are integrated into third party websites. Please note that where you access our booking engine on a third party website this Policy only applies to your use of the booking engine, and does not apply to any other use of that third party website.

Instant World Booking provides notification of this Privacy & Security Policy when accessing or using our websites or Service. By continuing to use our websites or Service, you accept our use of cookies, Privacy & Security Policy and Terms and Conditions.

WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?

Our primary goal in collecting personal information is to provide you with a smooth, efficient experience with your reservation or other Service you request. In order for us process your reservation we will ask you for certain information, such as your name, your email address, your booking details, and payment information. We need your payment information so we can guarantee your reservation at confirmation. This information is necessary for the adequate performance of the Service you request from us, and to allow us to comply with legal obligations. Without it, we may not be able to provide you with all the requested Services.

We also collect certain information from the device you use to access our website, such as your IP address, what browser you use and what type of device you are using. In addition to the information that we collect ourselves, we sometimes receive information that is collected on our behalf by third parties, such as when you see an Instant World Booking advertisement displayed on a third party site.

For service providers creating a listing and using our travel agency and other marketing services, we may ask you to provide additional information, which may include identity verification, business authentication, and certain financial information (like your bank account or receiving account information) in order to facilitate the processing of payments.

1. Information you choose to give us

Most of the personal data that we collect about you will be information that you have given to us yourself.

Account - If you set up an account with our Service, we will store details of your username and password, your settings preferences (e.g. language, currency, location), your past reservations, and other optional information you submit in forms on our Service.

Reservation Details - When you make a reservation we will ask you for information that we need in order to process the reservation. This will include your name, nationality, gender, mobile or other phone number (if you want to receive a confirmation by SMS message), payment details, and your email address.

Email address - You provide your email address in connection with any reservation or Service you request from us. Your email address will be used to communicate with you regarding your reservation, transaction, or Service you request from Instant World Booking. We may also send you emails and announcements that are necessary for the proper functioning, administration, and use of our Service. Without it, we may not be able to provide the requested Service.

Reviews - If you leave a review in relation to your stay at a property, this will be linked to your account on our Service, which means we will treat it as containing your personal data.

Email Marketing - When we collect your email address we will record your preferences regarding receipt of marketing emails from us in relation to our own products and services and those of third parties.

Location Data - If you enable location services on your device and perform a search using your current location or view map directions from your location, we may record your location. We may also use your IP address to determine your approximate location when you make a reservation or use our Service.

Address book contacts - You may choose to provide address book contacts, for the purpose of inviting your contacts to use our Service.

Other information - You may otherwise choose to provide us information when you fill in a form, conduct a search, update or add information to your Instant World Booking Account, respond to surveys, post to community forums, participate in promotions, or use other features of our Service.

2. Information we automatically collect from your use of our Website and Service

When you use our website and Service, we automatically collect information, including personal information, about the services you use and how you use them. This information is necessary for the adequate performance of the Service you request from us, to enable us to comply with legal obligations and given our legitimate interest in being able to provide and improve the functionalities of the Service.

Geo-location Information - When you use certain features of our Service, we may collect information about your location as determined through data such as your IP address or mobile device's GPS to offer you an improved user experience. Most mobile devices allow you to control or disable the use of location services for applications in the device's settings menu.

Usage and Device Information - We may collect information about your interactions with the Service such as the pages or content you view, your searches for service provider listings, bookings you have made, and other actions on our Service. We may also automatically collect log data and device information when you access and use our Service, even if you have not created an account or logged in. This information may include, among other things: details about how you've used our Service, IP address, access dates and times, hardware and software information, device information, device event information, unique identifiers, cookie data, and the pages you've viewed or engaged with before or after using our Service.

Cookies and Similar Technologies - We use cookies and other similar technologies, such as pixels and mobile identifiers. We may also allow our business partners to use these tracking technologies on our Service, or engage others to provide similar tracking on our behalf. You may disable the usage of cookies through your browser settings. For more information on our use of these technologies, see our Cookie Policy.

Payment Transaction Information - We collect information related to your payment transactions through our Service, including the payment instrument used, date and time, payment amount, and other related transaction details. This information is necessary for the adequate performance of the contract between you and Instant World Booking and to allow for the Service you requested.

3. Information We Collect from Third Parties

Although we mainly collect information directly from you, there are circumstances where we collect information from third party sources.

Affiliates - We operate an affiliate program under which third parties advertise our website or Service on our behalf. If you click on one of those advertisements you are directed to our website using a technology that allows us to understand which affiliate referred you. We then track if you make a booking, and if you do we attribute that booking to the affiliate for the purposes of paying them a commission. However, we don't provide the affiliate with any personal information in relation to you.

Advertisements and Analytics - We work with third parties to display advertisements or to analyze the functionalities of our Service. When we work with third parties for these purposes we may use technologies like cookies or pixel tags to record details of your interactions, either with the advertisements or our Service. This data is sometimes sent to us through cookies and pixel tags that are set on our behalf by those third parties. For more information on our use of these technologies, see our Cookie Policy.

HOW DO WE USE INFORMATION WE COLLECT?

We primarily use your personal data to process your reservations and provide you with a Service you request from us. We may also use your personal data for a number of other reasons, such as tailoring advertisements and marketing emails so they are relevant to you, monitoring your use of our websites and Service to help us make improvements, and to provide the additional services that we make available on our website.

Reservations - We use your personal data in order to process bookings with travel service providers, and to let you manage your bookings through our Service. Where we process personal data for this purpose we will do so either on the basis that we have a contractual duty to do so, or on the basis of our legitimate interests in providing the booking service. We provide the information you submit in the confirmation process to the travel service provider. This is so they will know who you are and when you will be arriving. We provide your name, gender (if available), phone number, credit or debit card or billing details, and the details of your booking. We supply your email address as well to facilitate communication. The service provider requires this information to guarantee a confirmed booking from you. The guarantee may involve the service provider verifying, authorizing, or charging a deposit to your credit or debit card, in accordance with their stated booking policies. All travel service providers we facilitate reservations for have agreed to our Terms and Conditions and accept this Privacy & Security Policy. We never provide any of your personal information, including payment details, to any third party outside of the specific reservation process that you initiate. By using our Service, you expressly agree to such usage of your personally identifiable information.

Email Communications and Notifications - We send reservation confirmations and other information about your reservation to your email address. This is part of the ordinary reservation process, and you agree that we will communicate with you for this purpose via email or other contact information you provide. We may also provide status updates, notifications, and other relevant information about your reservation or the Service you request, to your email.
In circumstances not explicitly based on your consent, we may also send you emails and notifications that are necessary for the proper functioning, administration, and use of our Service. Without these communications we may not be able to provide you with the Service you request.
Where we have collected your email address in the context of providing you with our Service, and you have not opted out of receiving email marketing, we may send you emails that we think will be useful to you. This may include our regular newsletter, special offers, travel tips, customer surveys and information about products and services offered by us. If you have given your consent, we may send you offers from selected third parties. These emails may include advertising that has been tailored using other information that we hold about you. You may opt out of receiving email messages at any time by clicking on the link provided in the email messages. Although when we send you an email or notification this may in certain circumstances be on the basis of your consent, for all other purposes our processing of your personal data in connection with those emails or notifications is on the basis of our legitimate interests in ensuring that our advertising is effective.

Providing, Improving and Developing our Services - We use information collected from or about you to enable you to access and use our Service. We use your information to operate, protect, improve, and optimize our Service, such as by performing analytics and conducting research. We also use your information to provide customer service, including sending you service or support messages, updates, security alerts, and account notifications. All of this processing of your personal data is on the basis of our legitimate interests in operating, improving and securing our Service.

Advertising and Marketing - We always want to ensure that our advertising and marketing will be relevant to you and your interests, whether the advert appears on a website we operate, in our marketing emails or on a third-party site. We use the information we collect to personalize, measure, and improve our advertising. We also use this information to send you promotional messages, marketing, advertising, and other information that may be of interest to you based on your preferences, and social media advertising through social media platforms (such as Facebook or Google). Some of our advertising partners (e.g., Facebook) provide a feature called audience matching to enable us to show you more relevant adverts, or to ensure that we don't show you an advertisement that isn't relevant to you. We will process your personal information for the purposes listed in this section given our legitimate interest in undertaking marketing activities to offer you products or services that may be of your interest. You can opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by following the unsubscribe link or instructions included in our marketing communications, or changing your opt-in settings within your Instant World Booking account.

Reviews - When you provide a review for a travel service provider we will publish this on the provider's page on our website, and on our some of our partners' sites. We will display the text of your review, alongside details of your gender, age range, home country and number of previous reviews. If you have not opted to be anonymous, we will also display your username alongside your review. Our processing of your personal data in order to make reviews available is on the basis of our legitimate interest in making the review system available to our users.

Queries and Complaints - When you send us a query in relation to a booking, or if you have a complaint in relation to a Service or travel serice provider, we will process your personal data in order to answer your query or in order to resolve your complaint. Where we process personal data in the context of a query or complaint we will do so on the basis of our legitimate interest in resolving customer queries and complaints. If you volunteer data in relation to your health, we will process that personal data on the basis that you consent to us using it in order to resolve your query or complaint.

Affiliate Program - We operate an affiliate program under which third parties advertise our website on our behalf. If you click on one of those advertisements you are directed to our website using a technology that allows us to understand which affiliate referred you. We then track if you make a booking, and if you do we attribute that booking to the affiliate for the purposes of paying them a commission. However, we don't provide the affiliate with any personal information in relation to you. We process your personal data in connection with our affiliate program on the basis of our legitimate interest in operating an effective commission based affiliate advertising programme.

Required Information - You are not obliged to provide us with any of your personal data. However, if you want to make a reservation, or use a Service we offer, you will need to provide us with the information that is indicated as required upon checkout or confirmation. If you don't provide us with this information, we won't be able to process your booking, or provide you with the Service you request. Similarly, you may be required to provide certain information if you want to take part in a promotion, survey, or if you contact our customer services with a query or complaint. We will inform you where such information is required.

WHO DO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH?

In order to process your reservation we have to send your details to the travel service provider that you have booked with. See the "Reservations" paragraph above (under the "HOW DO WE USE INFORMATION WE COLLECT?" section) for more information about the information that is shared. If you use or purchase another Service we offer, we may need to share personal data with third-party service providers to complete the delivery of that Service.

As part of our online advertising programs we may share your personal data with third parties, who will combine it with data that they hold about you in order to tailor advertisements that appear on third-party websites. Where this data is shared you are not directly identifiable from the information itself, as we use technologies that use non-personally identifiable codes and tags.

For travel service providers that publish their information on our Service, your information will be made available and visible to the general public. For example, as part of your public listing, contact names, profile photos, telephone numbers, descriptions, locations and addresses are publicly visible to others. After completing a booking, guests may write reviews and rate a travel service provider. Reviews are a part of your public listing page. If you submit content in a public forum or social media post, or use a similar feature on the Service, that content is publicly visible. Information you share publicly on our Service may be indexed through third party search engines. If you change your settings or your public-facing content, these search engines may not update their databases. We do not control the practices of third party search engines, and they may use caches containing your outdated information.

We also use a number of service providers to assist us in providing our Service, some of whom will have access to your data (e.g., we use various software service providers who host our data as part of their services). Where we engage a third party to process your data on our behalf, we make sure that they respect your privacy rights and that they process data in accordance with data protection law.

Instant World Booking may disclose your information to courts, law enforcement or governmental authorities, or authorized third parties, if and to the extent we are required to do so by law or if such disclosure is reasonably necessary: (i) to comply with legal process and to respond to claims asserted against Instant World Booking, (ii) to respond to verified requests relating to a criminal investigation or alleged or suspected illegal activity or any other activity that may expose us, you, or any other of our users to legal liability, (iii) to enforce and administer our Terms and Conditions of service or other agreements with Members or users, (iv) for fraud investigation and prevention, risk assessment, customer support, product development and debugging purposes, or (v) to protect the rights, property or personal safety of Instant World Booking, its employees, its Members, or members of the public. In such circumstances we will only share your personal data in compliance with data protection law.

RETENTION OF PERSONAL DATA

We generally retain, store and use personal data for the least amount of time necessary pursuant to our relationship with you (e.g., to provide you with our Service), in accordance with our data retention policies and any requirements that are imposed on us by law. This means that the retention period for your personal data will vary depending on the type of personal data. We do not collect more personal data than is necessary to fulfill our obligations to you or at law or for the purposes stated in this Privacy & Security Policy.

If you no longer want Instant World Booking to use your information to provide our Service to you, you have the right to request that we remove your account and personally identifiable information entirely.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT CONSENT

When we process your personal data on the basis of your consent, you are free to withdraw that consent at any time. You can withdraw your consent by contacting us using the contact details at the bottom of this notice. If your consent relates to receiving email marketing you can use the unsubscribe link in the email, or if it relates to notifications on your device you can turn off notifications using your device settings. Please note that if you withdraw your consent we may not be able to continue to provide the related Service to you.

YOUR RIGHTS UNDER DATA PROTECTION LAW

You have various rights under data protection law in connection with our processing of your personal data. For example, you have the right to request a copy of your personal data that we hold and to request that we correct any errors in the personal data that we hold. These rights are subject to certain exceptions and exemptions. You have the following rights under data protection law:

Right to access your personal data - You have the right to request a copy of the personal data that we hold about you, together with other information about our processing of that personal data.

Right to rectification – You have the right to request that any inaccurate data that is held about you is corrected, or if we have incomplete information you may request that we update the information so that it is complete.

Right to erasure – You have the right to request us to delete personal data that we hold about you. This is sometimes referred to as the right to be forgotten.

Right to restriction of processing or to object to processing – You have the right to request that we no longer process your personal data for particular purposes, or to object to our processing of your personal data for particular purposes.

Right to data portability – You have the right to request us to provide you, or a third party, with a copy of your personal data in a structured, commonly used machine readable format.

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS OF PERSONAL DATA

As described in this Privacy & Security Policy, we may sometimes share your information with third parties. When you use Instant World Booking's Service, you authorize us to transfer, store, and process your information in the United States and possibly other countries. Laws in these countries may differ from the laws applicable to the place where you live. For example, information collected within the European Economic Area (EEA) may be transferred, stored, and processed outside of the EEA for the purposes described in this Privacy & Security Policy. By using the our Service, you consent to transferring your data to these countries.

Our Service is supported by a network of servers, computers, and other infrastructure and information technology, including, but not limited to, third-party service providers. Instant World Booking and some of our affiliates, servers, vendors and service providers may not be located in your jurisdiction and may also be located outside of the EEA and Switzerland. If you use or request our Service from a location outside the U.S., please be advised that any information you provide, or that is collected by us from third party sources, in connection with any such activity may be processed in and/or transferred to the United States and/or other territories and locations, where privacy protections may not be as comprehensive as those in the territory or location where you access our websites or use our Service. If you are an EU citizen or resident in the EU, we will transfer your personal information to the United States in accordance with EU data protection law requirements, utilizing third-party service providers that are self-certified under the EU-US Privacy Shield and the Swiss-US Privacy Shield, and that offer EU Standard Contractual Clauses.

Please note that such transfers may also be necessary in order to perform our obligations under a contract with you, to fulfill a request made by you, to provide our Service requested by you, to meet a legal or regulatory obligation and/or through obtaining your express consent.

SECURITY

We are continuously implementing and updating administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your information against unauthorized access, loss, destruction, or alteration. However, the Internet is not a 100% secure environment so we can't guarantee the security of the transmission or storage of your information.

OTHER RELEVANT PRIVACY POLICIES

Some of our third party advertising partners ask us to make you aware of their privacy policies. These policies are available by following the links below:

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY & SECURITY POLICY

Instant World Booking reserves the right to modify this Privacy & Security Policy at any time in accordance with this provision. If we make changes to this Privacy & Security Policy, we will post the revised Policy on all Instant World Booking websites and update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this Privacy & Security Policy. If you disagree with the revised Privacy & Security Policy, you may cancel your Account. If you do not cancel your Account before the date the revised Privacy & Security Policy becomes effective, your continued access or use of our websites or Service will constitute acceptance of the revised Privacy & Security Policy.